I'm finally playing Minecraft with friends, rather than alone. It's a lot more fun that one, with people to show off to. Inevitably, I found myself tinkering with redstone, because there's so much cool stuff to do with it. Of course it's a bit expensive to do too much tinkering on a live server, so I made my own little sandbox where I can figure out the general concepts. I'll still have to work out how to fit everything into the space I have.

Space is limited, obviously, because I'm trying to put hidden doors and tunnels everywhere I can, particularly within the castle we're building. My attempts to use paintings didn't work because we don't all have exactly the same textures and even the perfect painting won't cover perfectly. That leaves me trying to use redstone and sticky pistons, with the slight problem that I have never seen a slime.

In the meantime I built most of a theater. It also houses the Center for Advanced Door Research, where I will eventually design the doors of the future. The door to the Center is, of course, not a simple wooden door. Sadly, I have not yet had time to add the full security such an important facility would require, such as combination locks, lava traps, and obsidian walls. The local tyrant is unlikely to provide sufficient resources.

Over in my own sandbox I tinkered a bit, creating a few creations. Most notable are the elevator, an incomplete proof-of-concept, and a pulse-cutter. The pulse cutter does what it sounds like: it cuts pulses. A normal button press creates a long signal. This cuts it off partially, creating a smaller pulse. I think it could be useful for regulating the elevator pistons. More importantly, I think it would make for a better input signal when lighting a dance floor, which I hope to add to the lower level of the theater, once I have... 1452 redstone ore for the diodes, plus more for the wiring, which will be at least another 80. Maybe the floor doesn't need to be the full 20x20 (the circuit is bigger than the visible floor).

Screenshots!

The screen (still needs a screen)

The seats (I'm refusing to put in red velvet)

Lower Grand Room (see why I'd need a lot of redstone?)

Center for Advanced Door Research (ooh, secret inside shot! Those are the circuits for the door)

The snow is due to a snow golem wandering around. At least I think I got rid of most of the chickens.